Bonner Querschnitte 20/2022 Ausgabe 724 (eng)

Singers from Allendorf at Holocaust memorial event in Jerusalem

(Bonn, 24.05.2022) The well-known singer and songwriter Siegfried Fietz from Greifenstein-Allendorf sang together with his son Oliver at the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

The two musicians had the opportunity to sing the song “Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen”, composed by Fietz, also in Hebrew. The text was written by the Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), who was executed by the Nazis a few days before the end of the war days before the end of the war in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in the Upper Palatinate.

The reason for Fietz’s trip was Israel’s commemoration of the beginning of the Holocaust 80 years ago, which claimed the lives of six million Jews fell victim. Father and son Fietz accepted an invitation from the General Secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance, Thomas Schirrmacher, a native of Giessen.

On this occasion, representatives of the Alliance, an association of 600 million Christians worldwide, laid two wreaths at the memorial site in Jerusalem. Israelis present at the memorial service had asked the two Central Hessians to sing the song the next day sing the song again the next day at another memorial service of a Jewish group. They gladly accepted this invitation.

The program of the six-day trip to the Holy Land also included a reception by Israeli President Yitzchak Herzog. This was touched by Fietz’s commitment. “The trip was a moving moment for me, one of my highlights in life,” the 75-year-old summarizes his impressions. “Hitler and his henchmen did terrible things and 80 years ago at the Wannsee Conference they decided to extermination of the Jews,” said Siegfried Fietz. He was pleased that 80 years later he could contribute to reconciliation with his songs contribute to reconciliation.

Downloads and Links:

• Photo 1 and photo 2: Siegfried and Oliver Fietz mit Thomas Schirrmacher in Yad Vashem © WEA/Timothy Goropevsek
• Video message by Thomas Schirrmacher (in German): https://worldea.org/secgen/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/FIETZ-Deutsch-Thomas-Israel.mov
• Video of the song „Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen“: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKUWQgcgKT0
• Original press release of the Evangelischer Kirchenkreis an Lahn und Dill (in German): https://evangelisch-an-lahn-und-dill.de/aktuelles/siegfried-und-oliver-fietz-singen-in-yad-vashem/